


The Best Medicine

by SuburbanSun



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Awkward Flirting, Coworkers - Freeform, F/M, Loosely based on the "Flu Season" episode of Parks and Rec, Non-SHIELD AU, Waffles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 04:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11372835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuburbanSun/pseuds/SuburbanSun
Summary: It’s perfectly normal to bring homemade waffles to a new colleague who’s sick with the flu, isn’t it? It doesn’t have to mean anything at all.





	The Best Medicine

**Author's Note:**

  * For [recoveringrabbit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/recoveringrabbit/gifts).



> For recoveringrabbit, who requested "Fitzsimmons + waffles," and I was more than happy to oblige.
> 
> Lab colleagues AU. Pretty blatantly based on the “Flu Season” episode of Parks and Rec.

The first day that Fitz showed up to the lab to find Jemma’s station empty, he frowned, but didn’t think too much of it. After all, they’d only been working in the same lab for a few weeks, and in any case, he had plenty of work to do developing the perfect delivery mechanism for the antiserum she’d been concocting.

The second day she didn’t come in, a knot began to form in his stomach. He didn’t have her number, as they were just colleagues, so he shot her a quick email.

 

 _To:_ _jsimmons@scitech.org_  
_From:_ _lfitz@scitech.org  
_ _Subject: Everything ok?_

_Jemma,_

_Noticed you haven’t been here for a couple days… we didn’t scare you away, did we?_  

_-F_

 

She wrote back within minutes.

 

 _To:_ _lfitz@scitech.org_  
_From:_ _jsimmons@scitech.org  
_ _Subject: Re: Everything ok?_

_Hi Fitz!_

_Oh, I’m completely fine! No need to worry whatsoever-- although I do seem to have come down with a tiny, little smidgen of a case of the flu. I am, technically, at Sacred Heart Hospital, but it’s truly nothing--  the doctors assure me that my temperature will very likely drop below 100 any second now. I’m just not certain why they had to say it in Portuguese, which I was unaware I understood._

_Thanks for your concern, but I’ll be right as rain and back in the lab tomorrow!_

_Jemma_

_P.S. You haven’t scared me off at all. Don’t be silly._

 

Fitz bit his lip as he read the email on his phone, then read it over again. He’d had the flu before, but never been hospitalized-- that sounded rather serious. But if the doctors thought she’d be better any second… well, the lab felt too large, too quiet, and too lonely without her. In the back of Fitz’s mind, he wondered how he’d worked alone for two and a half years before she’d been assigned to be his partner three weeks prior. But he didn’t have an easy answer to that, and anyway, he didn’t want to focus on it. He threw himself into the device he was working on and told himself Jemma would be back the next day, right as rain like she promised.

But she wasn’t. He only made it until 10:15 a.m. before he’d grabbed his coat and headed for the parking lot, shouting to his supervisor that he’d be back around lunchtime.

When he arrived at Sacred Heart, it was a challenge to find someone who would give him Jemma’s room number. The first nurse he asked laughed in his face. Eventually, he mustered up every bit of the flirtation prowess he’d accumulated from observing his friend Hunter at the bar on darts night, and was a bit taken aback when it seemed to work on the admissions nurse.

Either that, or she took pity on him. When he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a window on his way to Room 616, he thought he looked harried. Frazzled. Distraught, even. 

Finally, he reached her room, and hesitated outside the doorway for just a moment before knocking on the jamb.  

“Knock, knock,” he said aloud, before grimacing. Clearly, Hunter’s flirtation lessons had not worked. Not that he was attempting to flirt. He wasn’t.

Jemma looked up from her hospital bed in surprise. She swam in the standard white gown, and her hair hung limp across her shoulders, but her eyes lit up when she saw him, and her smile warmed him through.  

“Fitz! You’re here!” Her grin faltered. “Do you have the flu, too?”

He chuckled, then took a few steps to enter the room. She had daytime TV on, but it was muted, and what appeared to be science periodical lay open on her blanketed lap. “No. I just thought I’d visit. I was… worried about you.”

Concern colored her features. “I could get you sick, Fitz. My doctors tell me I’m still a bit contagious.” She frowned deeper. “They sang it, actually. It was quite odd.”

Fitz edged closer to the bed, dropping into the molded plastic chair beside it. “I’ll take that risk.”

For a sick person who was apparently hallucinating both in foreign languages and in song, Jemma’s brown eyes were surprisingly lucid, a slow smile creeping across her face. After a moment, she glanced down at the Tupperware container he’d nearly forgotten about, still clutched in his hands.

“What’s that?”

He tore his eyes away from her to blink down at the plastic box, feeling suddenly quite silly. “Oh, this? Um. I know how terrible hospital food can be, so I thought you might like something less bland.” Belatedly, he held it out to her, and she took it. “It’s, ah, waffles. My mum always used to make me waffles when I was sick. It somehow always made me feel better. So I... made you some.” 

Jemma gently peeled back the lid of the container, peering down at the waffles inside. He'd nestled a small plastic ramekin of syrup next to them, and tucked a fork in there, too. “That was a placebo effect, of course,” she said, picking up the top waffle from the stack with both hands, disregarding the syrup and fork. “Pastries don’t have much in the way of medicinal qualities,” she added, breathing in the sugary scent with a smile. “Rest, and plenty of fluids-- those were much more likely to credit for your recovery,” she finished, then took a big bite of the waffle, chewing happily.

Fitz watched all this with amusement, as well as a surge of affection that made him glad he was already sitting down. 

“It’s delicious,” she said once she’d swallowed. “I feel better already. Thank you, Fitz.”

He nodded. “You’re welcome,” he said softly. After a moment, he realized he’d been staring, so he cleared his throat and spoke again. “I hope you’ll be back to work soon. I’ve made a lot of progress on that delivery mechanism for you. For the antiserum, I mean.”

“I can’t wait to see it,” she replied, and nibbled at the waffle.

Unsure of what else to say, Fitz stood up quickly, nearly knocking into the lamp on the bedside table. “Well, I should-- I kind of left in a rush, so I should get back to the lab before one of the assistants burns the place down.” Jemma grinned around a bite of waffle, and he began to back out of the room. “But… I’ll see you-- soon. I hope. I mean, I will. Get well soon.” Pressing his lips together in a tight line, he rapped on the doorjamb twice as if gaveling his own awkwardness to a blessed end.

“Bye, Fitz,” she called. “And thanks for the waffles! And for not singing!”

With a bashful smile and wave, he took one more look at her. Though her skin was wan and pasty, he thought she looked luminous in the light tumbling in through the cheap, plastic hospital window blinds.

And that’s when he knew-- she may have been the one who was sick, but he was most definitely in _trouble._

**Author's Note:**

> Want to hang out on Tumblr? I'm unbreakablejemmasimmons over there!


End file.
